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THE LANDING.
By Chance
Written in 1997 inspired by the following headline.

How many more dark secrets are lurking under Whitehall ?
The Sun February 27th 1997

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The Landing.

Chapter 1.

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‘ ALPHA.................ZERO................NINER ‘

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The Landing.

‘ ALPHA.................ZERO................NINER ‘

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‘ ALPHA.................ZERO................NINER ‘

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The Landing.

Lands End 18 : 37 The text on the computer screen scrolled down. The printer printed out another sheet copy of the text that was scrolling down the screen , falling onto a pile 3 ft high of already printed paper. Officer Dickson adjusted his glasses and stared blankly into the screen , looking at the green text on the blackground. 4 hrs of looking at nothing but. ‘ ALPHA ZERO NINER ‘ He wondered how he ever got into this. 3 yrs of training and a tour of Bosnia , trained in all types of combat and what does he get ? ..A desk job. Officer Dickson adjusted his glasses once more. “ ALPHA ZERO NINER......ALPHA ZERO NINER ......ALPHA THREE NINER..." Something different. He grabbed the code manual down by his side , pulling near of its chain that connected it to the the desk. He flicked through the pages with speed , unfamiliar with the new code flashing on screen. Alpha three niner : friendly fighter. No that's not it ... Alpha three one : civilian aircraft flying in restricted area No that wasn't it either.. Alpha three zero : Bikini Alert Seven . Officer Dickson dropped the manual in a panic. On his desk were two phones one a modern day black touch phone , the other an old GPO phone coloured red. The ‘ red ‘ phone
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had two keys below it one white , one green. Dickson picked up the red phone and turned the green key. “ It's here.... Bikini Alert Seven “ He spluttered down the phone , trying not to show that he was feeling on edge. He adjusted his glasses again waiting for the reply , hopinhg on thhe off chance that it was a computer error. What seemed an eternity the reply came back. “ OK “ The phone went dead. OK ? Dickson repeated the reply to himself. How could everything be OK ? He slouched back into his chair resting his arms on the rests and watched as all the lights in the room turned from their grim yellow to a blood red ...... A siren goes off...... Dartmoor 18:42 High Tor underground tracking station. A green blip goes backwards and fourth on the radar screen , the same as it does every hour. The telex beside the computer screen began to beep and began printing.. “ B...I...K...K...I...N...I.. “ The operator like the first one alone begins to read the printing Telex. “ A......L....E.....R.....T...” The operator adjusted his slouch to a more upright position. “ S....E....V....E......N... “ He ripped the paper from the telex. “ Bikini Alert Seven “

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The Landing.

He froze temporarily and then in a chaotic fumble he started altering the dials surrounding the computer screen. The blip on the radar screen changed to a line , then a wave and then stopped. The Pupils in his eyes began to expand and with shaking hands he leant over to the desk mike. “ Its here..” Like the first operator he slouched back in his chair and watched as the lights around him turned to the blood red ... Another siren goes off. Scarborough 18:54 The Juggernaut let out a large hiss of steam as it braked in the middle of the hangar. The noise from the engine was echoed all around. The metallic sides of the jet black Truck reflecting everything. Cpt. Reads looked at his own reflection as he walked over to the cabin of the Truck. Reads was in his middle 30 's , he had been with the army for seventeen years now and this was his first job with special forces. Bikini Alert Seven he thought to himself , done hundreds of times in practice but now this was the real thing. Reads looked back into his reflection , hundreds of people were running around. He could hear the thump of the boots of the soldiers who were clambering into the back of his Juggernaut. HISS !! The truck let out another Hiss of steam as the driver revved the engine. “ This is it , here we go “ Cpt.Reads whispered to himself. He made his way up to the cabin of the truck. He slammed the door to the cabin and looked back into the hangar. All the people who were running around were gone instead ,
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lined up against the walls were new faces waiting for the truck to pull out. The driver revved the engine to the truck again relising the handbrake as he did. The truck pulled around the doors to the hangar and headed out into the cold night sky , dipping its headlights the moment it got through the army base gates. Reads looked back in the side mirror , he could see the next truck being loaded. Seventeen trucks in total left the hangar that night along with an array of landrovers and many other army vehicles , all dipping there headlights the moment they left the gates to the army base. Somewhere over the North of England 19:23 “ This is utopia four to section one “ “ Section one receiving , you know what to do “ Hill breathed in sharply. “ Utopia four message understood “ Hill was the pilot of the RAF Tornado which was now loitering over the north of England. Hill studied the radar in front of him , it was totally blank but in the distance through his head up display on the cockpit window he could see the alien object. It was moving in a random sweep pattern leaving traces of its bright green light across the cloudy night sky. Hill pulled his plane far right to move in line. Aiming the weapons systems on the Tornado was not an easy job specially when the radar was not showing anything but luckily Hill was an experience pilot , he knew when to fire. The first switch clicked on the sidewinder priming system , then the second. The red light in the corner of his head up display showed red , the missile was primed and ready to go. He studied the object for several seconds before moving his now slightly shaking hand onto the top of the flight yoke.
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The Landing.

CLICK!- The cover flipped up with ease , Hill slowly depressed the trigger , keeping his thumb down on the switch. With baited eyes he waited for the alien object to appear in the middle of the cockpit window and with that he slowly released his finger off the trigger switch... Wilkshirm 19:25 SLAM!- The youth slammed his glass down on the bar , looking over in the Barmaids direction. The Barmaid ignored his slight smile that he was giving her and just shouted. “ Same again ? “ Not being able to produce any legible sentence from his mouth , the youth just nodded. His name was Joe , he was 19 and worked up on one of the small farms in the village. This information was irrelevant though , in less than an hour he would be dead. The youth started to count his pennies down onto the bar , Three pounds twenty in total. He looked over at the bar maid pouring his drink , mapping her out with his eyes. He started thinking about her , in this god forsaken village in the middle of no where she was here. In this village where the average age of the resident was 50 , SHE was here. She had dark brown hair that came down to her waist matching her deep brown eyes , legs that would just kill you. The downside to this was that her being the only good looking girl for miles around , everyone wanted her and she knew it. His drink finally arrived and he passed over the change , giving her a slight smile in case this was the night that she turned round to him and said yes to his countless pleas of a drink. The Barmaid watched the youth drown his sorrows in his drink , in fact she wanted to do the same. She was fed up
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of being stuck in this small village of Wilkshirm , she wanted to get out. She looked over at the pubs patrons , it was the same crowd there as there was every night. The two old men playing draughts in the corner , the farmers all talking about the same thing , the old lady’s who never seemed to move amd hid their drinks behind magazines. Then there was the log fire that had never been allowed to die out. The story goes that when the pub was built over a hundreds years ago when the village used to be a rich mining town , that one day the owner of the mines lost a bet with the landlord. The price of the bet was the owner of the mine had to supply the pub with coal until the pub closed. The pub outlasted the mines , which shut in the seventies. The local power station decided to supply the coal to the pub in the honour of tradition. The fire had never gone out , it summed the whole of the atmosphere of the village. Nothing changed , but tonight the fire would go out. The slight rumble outside marked the beginning of the end for the small village of Wilkshirm. The rumble grew louder. " That will be thunder " One of the regulars said. He was wrong , the rumble began to grew louder and louder , the barmaid walked over to the window. There was no rain outside , no lighting either. The rumble began to grew in volume and the sky began to glow. It glowed a brilliant red , then turned to a yellow. The Rumbling grew , causing the windows of the pub to shake and glasses to rattle. The rumbling became a wine , then a scream and then the crash. The pub was illuminated by the brilliance of the light , several glasses came crashing to the floor. The landlord ran up the cellar steps and appeared in the bar.
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“ Sounds like there’s been an accident up on the hills.... I suggest we all go up there , John bring the tractor will you ? “ His strong Yorkshire accent echoed around the pub. The whole pub seemed to rise all at once , everyone began talking , breaking the usual silence in the pub. They left through the double doors , The youth sitting at the bar to be the last once out. They started to make there way up onto the cold. Grim moors.... Cpt.Reads opened the plain envelope sitting on his lap as he sped along in the convoy of trucks. The contents of the letter were simple 4 words in fact , ‘ Search...retrieve...cover....leave ‘ That was the contents. He turned the crisp white paper over and over again but their was nothing , he ripped apart the envelope with great force in the hope of finding more.. Nothing but those few words. He whispered the words back to himself. Reads could hear the men in the back of the giant truck singing the usual routine of songs which always started with the song taking the rise out of the parachute regiment then going onto there exploits of a weekend. Reads felt it was wrong that they were singing especially in fact of what they were about to do , but he was also glad of hearing the voices , just so he didn't feel so alone as he did at the moment. “ It's over here “ The landlord with his following walked up onto the hills away from the village , the mist came creeping up slowly covering the grass of the moors. The light from behind the hills was glowing brightly , they were only 200 yards from it now. The landlord from the pub was beginning to have
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doubts that this was a good idea something in the air was trying to tell him something , it was a kind of warning siren. The Landlord at first thought it was the wind of the moors but after turning his head away from the wind it was definitely not. For a moment in the swirling mists of the moors , the Landlord was sure he made out a definite shape it was like a ' s ' with a ' y ' cutting through it in a circle though looking again there was nothing there. It he had listen to his insticts he would of saved the life’s of all the villagers but he didn’t. Another light began to appear from the hill behind them , not like the brilliance of the light behind the hill that they were facing it was more direct. Cpt.Reads and his convoy were here ....